60 WILD FLOWERS OF SCOTLAND 



it can help it, and the butter-producing qualities 

 in the milk they never enter ? Or was it the cool, 

 moist, fresh look in the cup that suggested this 

 cool, fresh name ? 



One may test this element in the shrub by 

 putting a bit of the bark in his mouth, just as he 

 may discover why a cow avoids the buttercup by 

 chewing a bit of the stem. 



Again, I imagine that the broom has not been so 

 long here ; nor has it passed through anything like 

 the hard discipline to sour its temper, raise its 

 bristles, and put it on the defensive. And, lastly, 

 the broom is not nearly so much a child of the 

 wastes, where the chief danger lies. 



The simple distinction between the areas of 

 broom and whin is, that the whin frequents bare, 

 arid, and sandy stretches; while the broom finds 

 out unoccupied places, with a certain depth and 

 richness of soil, such as the margin left where the 

 plough could reach no nearer to the hedge. 



Of course they cross into each other's domain. 

 Especially is this the case with the whin. The 

 poor, though quite able to exist on what they have, 

 never object to a better home. Often they are 

 seen to mingle their dark and light green foliage ; 

 their dusky, and bright yellow blossoms. But 



